The Importance of a Meal
by Varmint
Summary: The five times Kiba forced Chouji to cook with him. And the one time Chouji learned exactly why it was that this meant something big. Chouji/Kiba! One-shot! 5-and-1 story style!


The five times Kiba forced Chouji to cook with him. And the one time Chouji learned exactly why it was that this meant something big.

**_1._**

"Move over, Pork Chop."

Chouji was accustomed to hearing Kiba's gruff voice calling him by such a name. But he wasn't accustomed to the Inuzuka sounding so _soft_ when he spoke.

The fire before him was comfortingly warm, but had been built in a haste and so wasn't as hot as Chouji would have liked to cook with. It crackled lazily and the light it offered wasn't the brightest; but it was enough to illuminate the small forest clearing they had set up their camp in.

"What's wrong, Kiba?" Chouji asked as he turned his head to the side to chance a glance at the Inuzuka. He found Kiba walking up to him, shirtless and with a thick set of bandages rolled around his chest.

Seeing this, the pain from his right hand shot up his arm and made itself seem urgent once more. Chouji tried his best to ignore it as he moved the appendage in the direction of his pack, where he needed to grab the scroll filled with his cooking utensils. But it was heavily bandaged and the slightest twitch of his fingers made him want to scream out. He shouldn't have been cooking. But he couldn't eat just ration bars.

"I said move over." Kiba gruffly repeated as he made his way to Chouji's right, softly shoving him away from the pack he had been reaching into. "You're sweat's filled with pain, you gotta stop moving and let your hand rest, idiot."

Chouji allowed himself to be pushed slightly to the left, more than aware that putting up any kind of resistance might cause his hand more harm than good. But he puffed his cheeks up in frustration- just what did Kiba think he was doing?

Without explaining any further, the Inuzuka stuck his hand unceremoniously into the Akimichi's pack and pulled out the large scroll Chouji had been trying to grab. Then he picked up Chouji's backpack and moved it behind them, so it wasn't in the way, and unrolled the scroll on the ground before them. After he had finished that, Kiba frowned down at the scroll- did Chouji hear him growl?

"Can you unseal it with your good hand?"

Chouji nodded and followed through with his usual motions of unsealing the utensils and pots- although his movements with his left arm and hand were clumsier than what he cared to admit.

Behind them, Sakura shouted in frustration over something, but boys decided to ignore her. She hadn't been all that gentle with her movements when she had patched him up- Chouji really didn't want to accidentally set her off once more.

Kiba scoffed and whispered, so only Chouji heard him, "I'm never getting assigned on a mission with that dragon ever again. Even the _Inuzuka_ healers know how to dress these wounds without being complete assholes!"

Choji sighed softly, "Well, she _does_ have a reason to be angry with us. We should have waited for her to signal the all-clear before we jumped in to capture the treasure. Maybe then I wouldn't have gotten my hand broken and you wouldn't have busted your ribs."

Once more, the Inuzuka scoffed with clear irritation. But he soon shook his head and pointed down at the cooking supplies Chouji had unsealed. "Hurry up and tell me how to make whatever it was you were planning to make before that dragon finishes with Akamaru. He's trying his best to be cute, but there's only so much the poor guy can do."

For a second, Chouji was left stricken by the sudden comment.

Kiba _didn't_ cook. He'd made that much very clear dozens of times before. Even though this was the first mission they went on since the Sasuke recovery mission from a few months ago, Chouji had known for years now that the Inuzuka _didn't cook_. It was actually one of the reasons the Rookie 9 rumored about Kiba having been placed on a team with both Shino and Hinata. While he couldn't cook, the other two _could_.

"Kiba..."

"Hurry up! I'm hungry." Kiba growled, now turning a dangerous glare onto Chouji. "Tell me what to do or I'll hunt down a rabbit and eat it raw."

Chouji found that the threat was rather excessive- and found it kind of funny, actually. No one was about to eat raw meat, not even his starving Inuzuka teammate.

But he still went about explaining what to do and how to cook to his teammate, who did a surprisingly good job of following his every word and completing a rather delicious simple soup.

**_2\. _**

"Yo, Pork Chop!"

The Akimichi couldn't stop himself from shouting out at the sudden appearance of Kiba Inuzuka in his kitchen.

As his heart threatened to break through his chest, Kiba fell into a fit of giggles at how he had managed to catch Chouji so unaware. Akamaru, though, was sympathetic enough to jump down from his human's head and onto the park bench Chouji had been comfortably sat on before either of them had arrived. The puppy made his way onto Chouji's lap and began to lick at his shirt- and when Chouji noticed the barbeque sauce stain on it, he understood that Akamaru wasn't being kind, he was taking advantage of Chouji's surprise.

"Oh, come on, Pork Chop! Ain't you supposed to be a ninja?" Kiba jumped over the back of the bench and threw his arms over the Akimichi's shoulders. The fur from his hood tickled the plump boy's cheeks. "I didn't meant ta scare ya, okay? Sorry. But I'm real excited!"

With this, the Inuzuka jumped over the back of the bench once more, but this time landed with his feet directly beside Chouji. He, apparently, didn't really care about the social consensus for keeping feet off of where someone was supposed to sit.

"Why're you excited?" Chouji questioned, all the while Akamaru jumped off of his lap and padded over towards where Kiba was now squatting on the bench.

"We just got a fresh shipment of Nara deer!" Kiba cheered, throwing his arms out to either side of him before bringing them in and hugging himself with an eager smile painting his lips. "That's the juiciest meat we Inuzuka get our paws on!"

Without allowing Chouji to offer his own commentary on how delicious Nara meat was- it was some of the finest meat offered to the market-, Kiba grabbed him by the collar of the shirt and pulled him in. As he did this, he had a crazed glint within his eyes, along with a sharp, somewhat unhinged look to his smile. "You gotta teach me how to cook it!" he glanced away, frowning momentarily, "Ma always gives me the scraps 'cause I don't know how to cook." then he looked back at Chouji with the same deranged smile, "You'll teach me how to make it and then no one'll take our meat away from us!"

The Akimichi looked deep into Kiba's eyes- taking stock of how truly hysterical the sharp irises looked.

It wasn't often that his friends sought him out for help on their food. Because most of them knew the basics, they had decided that they didn't really need to know more for when they went on missions.

And it wasn't often that he got to hang out with people that weren't on his genin team. Even though they all worked to keep in contact, it was pretty hard to do with the constant mission they would have to go on. And because they weren't always in the Village at the same time, keeping their friendships strong wasn't the easiest thing in the world.

It _would_ be nice to spend some time with Kiba. They hadn't managed to actually talk to one in another ever since that mission two months ago, where Chouji had broken his hand and Kiba had splintered ribs.

Ah, why not?

"Okay. Let's go!"

"Ya-hoo!"

Kiba howled as he jumped a good meter into the air, flipped backwards, and landed on the ground on his hands and feet, crouching in vaguely feral manner. Akamaru howled in tandem and jumped after him, flying into the inside of his hoodie before Kiba straightened and looked at Chouji- mad smile somehow having managed to become even more crazed in the few seconds that had passed.

"We gotta hurry! I've gotta fight Kuromaru for the meat! Akamaru, you've gotta be ready to bite low!"

Chouji smiled softly at the energy and somewhat worrying words, but soon stood up and followed after Kiba.

That afternoon, Chouji wound up teaching Kiba how to cook deer meat and meeting his family. The dogs were all mostly nice, albeit somewhat too cuddly. But his mother was scary. _So scary._

**_3._**

"You made a mistake, Chouji."

The Akimichi quirked an eyebrow at his teacher.

The man was eating from the picnic he had prepared for Team 10. Shikamaru and Ino were both enjoying their food, but they hadn't said anything. Chouji hadn't said a word either.

"What do you mean, Asuma-sensei?" Ino asked curiously, tilting her head to the side before taking another bite of her dango.

Asuma-sensei finished swallowing his own dango, then looked over at Chouji. "He fed an Inuzuka."

Chouji frowned at the, quite frankly, mostly useless sentence.

But at that very moment, the reason for Asuma-sensei having said such a thing ran into their picnic area, landing on top of Chouji's back with a crazed laugh. "Quick, Pork Chop! Ma wants some of them delicious- ooh, dango!"

Without really waiting for anyone to react, Kiba jumped over Chouji, fell onto his lap, and then leaned over to where Shikamaru's food was resting beside him and swiped a piece of dango. Shikamaru let out a surprised huff and seemed ready to ask the Inuzuka just what in the world he was doing, but Kiba was talking again before Shikamaru managed to say anything.

"Y'know, I managed to catch a family of rabbits. Want me to bring 'em over tonight? We can make some of that delicious stir fry!"

Kiba swiveled his body around so that he could throw one arm over Chouji's neck and they could looked one another's face. Chouji smiled softly at the eagerness in Kiba's face, then nodded.

"Yeah. Should I expect Hana and your mom too?"

"Yup!" Kiba jumped up with a shout, yelled back a half-hearted goodbye to the rest of his team, and then he was gone just as suddenly as he had arrived.

Chouji shook his head at him- at this point, he was already accustomed to Kiba hunting him down at random times just to ask to cook something up together. But he soon turned back to his team, only to find Asuma-sensei shaking his head.

"You're in over your head, boy. You have no idea what any of that meant, do you?"

"What're you talking about, sensei?" Chouji questioned, only for the man to smirk and pick up a cigarette.

"Can't say, Chouji. I've got money riding on this."

"What?"

He was _so_ confused.

But... well, at least he'd get to cook with Kiba tonight. That was always fun.

**_4._**

"Oi, Pork Chop!"

"Ah!" Chouji screamed out before he could properly stop himself, then sent a panicked fist in the direction of the person that had invaded his room.

Kiba managed to dodge out of the way before he could be hit- but Chouji's wall did not have the same amount of luck. Chouji's fist splintered the wood with little resistance and it was only because this was an Akimichi household that the punch didn't completely obliterate the unfortunate material.

"Kiba! What are you doing here?" Chouji panted with his eyes wide, absolutely surprised by suddenly having Kiba _break into his room_.

Even though they had been really good friends in the past few years, this was the first time Kiba had decided to sneak in. So Chouji believed he was well within his right to have reacted so violently to something that should not have happened!

The Inuzuka straightened up from his alert crouch on the floor, then jumped onto Chouji's bed. He ended up pressed right beside Chouji, hugging from the side.

"Sorry for scaring you." for the first time in their lives, Kiba actually sounded _apologetic_ when he apologized.

Kiba Inuzuka was a proud person. He _didn't_ apologize. Or, at least, Chouji had never heard him apologize. Not even when he had accidentally destroyed Ino's garden in the search of a supposedly prized bone in her backyard. This was someone that refused to ever be wrong- even worse than Naruto, back when he had still been within the Village.

"I was so excited about this new recipe I found that I kind of forgot we're close to midnight." Kiba was actually _whispering_. "Please don't hate me, I didn't mean to scare you or wake you up."

Now Kiba was essentially nuzzling into his side, pressing his head into Chouji's upper arm. This action was very similar to what he had seen Akamaru do whenever he actually managed to piss Kiba off... It's what Inuzuka did when they wanted to let people know they were genuinely sorry.

Chouji sighed and raised his hand, beginning to run it over Kiba's hair.

"I'm not angry and I don't hate you. Just... please no more midnight sudden wake up calls, okay?"

"Promise! Now, come on! Peanut butter cake!"

Any moments of severity forgotten, Kiba grabbed onto Chouji's hands and pulled him out of his incredibly comfortable bed.

Chouji only smiled and allowed himself to be pulled. But he did remind Kiba that he shouldn't be too loud- his parents were sleeping. And the last thing they needed was Chouza waking up and wanting from what they were about to make.

**_5\. _**

"Pork Chop, my love! I'm starving and I'm hiding from my clan. So let's make some of that amazing steak you make so's I've got a reason to hide from ma and the rest!"

Shikamaru frowned at Kiba forcing himself into the chair beside Chouji, and then pressing himself directly beside the Akimichi. Chouji merely smiled and greeted Kiba before asking him what he had done this time around to piss off his clan.

"He needs boundaries."

Chouji frowned at his best friend, allowing Kiba to grab his hand and begin to run his nails over it to distract himself. Even though Kiba enjoyed interrupting his time with his friends to steal him away to make food, he also understood that some conversations needed to be finished before they left.

"Shikamaru, he's right here." Chouji chided, only to shrug, "We're just about done, anyway."

Shikamaru thought that after years of friendship with Kiba, Chouji had become corrupted. Chouji thought that Shikamaru was just too serious sometimes.

With a heavy groan, Shikamaru murmured, "Just wait a couple of years. If you let him continue like this, you'll end up married with him and stuck with-"

The hands that had been playing with his stopped and grabbed onto him harshly, then began to pull him up and away from his chair.

"C'mon, Chouji! I've got asylum at your house, not here. We gotta hurry if I'm gonna be a refugee with you people."

"Alright, Kiba." Chouji stood up with a small smile, then looked at Shikamaru. The Nara merely rolled his eyes. "Bye Shika."

Honestly speaking, what Shikamaru had said was weird. But Shikamaru was weird. There was nothing off with his relationship with Kiba. And Shika really needed to get some social tact if he didn't want to accidentally anger the wrong person.

Kiba was a nice friend that tolerated a lot more than other people would. Shika needed to understand that he couldn't just talk like that about people without at least calculating the possible consequences.

* * *

_**+1**_

"Do you even like me? You're always in my house... but..."

"What do you mean, Pork Chop?" Kiba's eyes narrowed, then he sneered- sharp canines glistening in an almost predatory manner. "Do I have to castrate anyone for insulting you?" in a flash, the Inuzuka had crossed the living room with a sharp kitchen knife in hand. "You only care when one of your teammates talk shit- Ino's getting it now!"

Chouji's eyes widened and he jumped after the Inuzuka, scurrying towards him with some caution, considering how his mother had just sharpened that particular knife a day or two ago.

"Don't hurt anyone!" he shouted as grabbed onto Kiba's left shoulder. Once he had a tight grip, he pulled back in the hopes of making Kiba turn around to face him. "No one said anything!"

Kiba sniffed at the air but, after a second of not moving, budged and allowed the Akimichi teen to pull him back into the kitchen and away from the rampage he had impulsively decided to embark on. "You're lying," he muttered, eyes narrowing into dangerous slits. "but I'm going to be nice enough to give you a minute to explain why in the world my mate is wondering why I like him when I, of course, do."

Chouji frowned at _that_ specific word, then released his grip on Kiba's arm. Afterwards, the Inuzuka crossed his arms over his chest- nestling the knife below his left arm even as it was kept pointed away from both of them- and waited for him to continue speaking.

"Kiba," Chouji began, only to have all the words in his mouth suddenly die.

What was he supposed to ask Kiba, _exactly_? If he liked him? Wasn't that just... _too_ pretentious?

With a growl, Kiba thrust his face directly into Chouji's own. The Akimichi had become accustomed to randomly getting sniffed by his friend after years of this, so he didn't flinch away. But he did looked down at the Inuzuka's eyes, trying to find any change in his own facial expression as he took stock of exactly how he smelled.

"You're scared." he just about snarled, straightening himself, "Who hurt you? I need to make sure Ino deserves to get castrated."

"How-" Chouji couldn't stop himself from wondering just _how_ the Inuzuka was planning to do such a thing; but he soon shook his head and inhaled deeply.

It was about time he explained himself- if he didn't, Kiba was likely to go on a rampage, threatening _all_ of their friends until someone explained to him exactly what had happened.

"Kiba... we've been friends for years now."

Kiba nodded, allowing a small smile to come onto his lips. "And they've been great years, Pork Chop."

Chouji nodded in agreement, then forced himself to continue. He needed answers. "But... Kiba... _why _are we such good friends?"

Kiba cocked his head to the side, then uncrossed the arm that was gripping onto the knife. With the knife, he scratched at the side of his head- and Chouji felt suddenly incredibly odd about the fact that he _didn't_ try and stop Kiba from doing such a thing... he knew the Inuzuka knew how to wield the dangerous item without hurting himself.

"Well, we're more than just friends, Chouji." Kiba pursed his lips, glancing down at the floor. "We're mates."

"Mates?"

Kiba nodded, beginning to twirl the knife handle in his right hand. Once more, Chouji _didn't _feel endangered with the potentially dangerous actions. "You accepted all my gifts; I've accepted yours; I basically live at your house." after having said this, Kiba offered a bright smile, finishing with, "All we're missing to be officially married is to kiss!"

Chouji blinked.

"What?"

"What? You want to kiss now? I have no issue with that, _but_ my mom could get kind of pissy over not getting the chance threaten you before we finished getting together."

He was absolutely confused.

The only reason why he had asked why Kiba liked him was because Ino had said that Chouji _deserved_ better than an insane Inuzuka cock-blocking him whenever he found a nice girl to talk to. Chouji had found it weird that she thought he was getting cock-blocked, especially because he was gay. But he had never thought Kiba liked him _like that_ because he had always thought they were just really good friends.

Kiba looked behind him, noticing the stove. "Shit, we can't let that shit burn! That's a bad omen, y'know. Mates that burns food together is the kind of couple that'll have their bridge burned by miscommunication." Kiba mentioned as he made his way over, "Or at least that's what Inuzuka tradition says."

Inuzuka tradition...

"Kiba, I've got a question."

"Shoot."

"Does Inuzuka tradition say something about sharing food?"

Kiba chuckled, "Of course it does! It's a declaration of love!"

Chouji thought back to his youth- back when his friendship with Kiba had truly began to develop... and now he was beginning to see what it was that Asuma-sensei had meant all those years ago.

"So when you offered to make food when we went on that mission with Sakura... you were confessing your love?"

"Yup!" Kiba smirked over at him as he grabbed the steak from the stove. "And every time I cook something for you, I confess yet again! It's cheesy, yeah, but... y'know." he shrugged, finally turning the stove off.

Kiba loved him.

They had apparently been in a relationship for _years_ now... there were a lot of things Kiba did that Chouji now understood.

Hmm...

Well... at least Kiba was a great person to be in a relationship with.

"So, wait, if we kiss, we're married?"

That was odd. But cute, in a way.

"How old is it normal for Inuzuka to marry?" he asked curiously, making his way to help him finish preparing the food.

"Whenever they feel like it, really." Kiba shrugged, then grabbed a strip of steak and began to nibble at it. "Why you ask?" he asked through the mouthful.

Chouji wasn't an adventurous sort of person. But he had apparently been living a romantic adventure for the past few years without knowing about it.

He could begin this one. He wouldn't leave Kiba to initiate this too.

As quickly as he could, the Akimichi moved his lips so they were on the other side of the strip of steak. And once he had managed to bite through the meat, he pressed his lips quickly to Kiba's, leaving the Inuzuka absolutely stunned. He then pulled away and made his way towards the rice, stirring it before he got to work on the vegetables that needed to get cut up.

"Chouji?" Kiba called behind him, sounding absolutely stunned.

"Hmm?" he hummed, smirking softly as he tried to keep Kiba from seeing the expression.

"Do you... Do you understand what you've just done?" Kiba whispered, sounding almost scared. "We've got to get married now!"

"We're eighteen and have apparently been together since we were twelve." Chouji turned around with the very shit-eating he had learned to mimic from Kiba. "Let's get married."

In a flash, he found his arms full of a cheering Inuzuka that he could barely keep a hold of.

Funny enough, _that_ was the best tasting meal he ever shared with Kiba.

~..~..~

Hope y'all enjoyed this silly, rushed, little one-shot about a pairing I just noticed I could make today.

Please review!


End file.
